New research suggests children who are allowed to "sip" on their parents' alcoholic drinks once in a while were more likely to start drinking in high school.
Out of the 561 students looked at in a long-term study, those who occasionally sampled wine around sixth grade were five times more likely to indulge in a full drink by the time they were in high school and were four times as likely to binge drink or get drunk, the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs reported.
The findings do not provide solid evidence that occasional sips of alcohol in childhood cause alcohol abuse but do dispute the "European model" that suggests introducing kids to alcohol early on leads to more responsible drinking.
The study surveyed 561 Rhode Island middle school students occasionally over a period of three years. At the beginning of sixth grade about 30 percent of the study subjects said they had tried alcohol. By the ninth grade 26 percent of the "early sippers" said they had drunk a full alcoholic drink. Nine percent had either gotten drunk or binge drank compared with only 2 percent of "non-sippers." The researchers took into account outside risk factors for alcohol abuse such as parents' drinking habits and family history of alcoholism.
The researchers suggested some of the problems may lie in the idea that children around the age of 11 get "mixed messages" if allowed to consume small amounts of alcohol.
"At that age, some kids may have difficulty understanding the difference between a sip of wine and having a full beer," said Kristina Jackson, of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University in Providence.
Despite these findings, the researchers said parents who have already allowed their children to sample alcohol should not be alarmed, but should give their kids "clear and consistent" messages about drinking.
